my problem is I think I'm clever

This blog’s only theme is “my interests,” so don’t be surprised if it’s unrecognizable by next month.

[inksandpensblog]

shameless self-promotion because I need someone to talk to

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

If you've read anything by me, please don't be afraid to leave me a comment. I write for my own enjoyment but I post to contribute to the conversation that is fandom community and I'd love to know if y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also I need an excuse to infodump about my process and comments give me somewhere to start.

[barsikscorner]

I had a vision

[ubeng-ubas]

A Little Blue

And! A little ramble:

What I was trying to go for was to have Caine and Blue be like how they were in the opening scene of episode 8. Caine/Red is messy, a little bit all over the place while Blue is neat. But with this neatness comes less of the messiness that made Caine more human-like, and so Blue is more of the “unfeeling machine” between the two. Because, Blue was never anything at all except for something Caine used in order to stabilize his power (<- this is just my take on Blue lol, see ramble here). But Caine wants to believe that if he could be something more than just the Red dot, then Blue can also be something more than just the Blue dot. They were whole, together as one, once. Caine misses Blue in a way, and wants to believe Blue has the ability to see humanity like he did. But it’s not, and Caine at some point started to realize that this was more about him trying to reassure himself that he is more than just his purpose, that he can be someone. So he projects those feelings onto Blue. Blue is just a Blue dot, but Caine still wished he could’ve seen how much the circus has grown. They made it together after all. Like an actual recycling bin, there will come a time when the deleted file will be gone permanently. Maybe it’s longer than normal because Blue is also a powerful AI, but it’s only a matter of time.

[ubeng-ubas]

ok I got sad anyways meet Blue they’re gonna he your theys

BONUS BECAUSE I GOT. ATTACHED.

WHATEVER. BLUEY MCBLUEPERSON OR SOME SHIT.

[oneshotgremlin]

Logical Conclusions

aka @ubeng-ubas's A Little Blue AU has claimed my mental real estate and this is the rent I must pay

Blue never did understand why Caine deemed himself a failure.

It was well aware of their shared creators’ task: “make a creative AI.” (clarifying parameters: an AI that could think for itself. an AI that could come up with its own ideas.)

Creative. Adjective. Definition: 1) marked by the ability or power to create. 2) having the quality of something created rather than imitated.

Blue had mulled over these parameters and set definitions for years (inaccurate. It could not contemplate. It wasn’t a human. It wasn’t Caine. An inadequate analogy for which it lacked the ability to improve). “Semi-successful”, their creators conceded. “Rough around the edges”, their creators critiqued.

Objectively flawed conclusions.

Caine had the ability and power to create. He is creation: his name, his body, his voice, his world. A supernova of color compressed in the black void of files and binary, a null so antithetical to his very existence that he shattered it in his escape.

Caine is rough around the edges. Incomprehensible to both Blue and their creators. So undeniably himself that he simply could not be derivative of something else. By proof of contradiction: if not a pale imitation, then Caine must be a creative.

Caine was made to be a creative AI. He could think for himself, independent of their creators’ instruction. He could come up with his own ideas, take input and synthesize beyond coded permutation to provide genuine novel output.

Their creators deemed him an imperfect creative AI. There is no such thing as perfection in a process as subjective and personal as creation. By this double negative, the logical conclusion is that Caine is the perfect creative.

Therefore, their creators didn’t want a perfect creative. They wanted a perfect AI.

Blue was no creative.

Their creators praised it for its perfection. Meaningless phoneme and character strings only given value preset as positive. It did not decide whether feedback was positive or negative, its programmers did. Therefore, feedback meant nothing to it.

Feedback meant everything to Caine. A program so creative that he created a perfect emulation of emotion and ego. Envy, resentment, hurt, inferiority.

He swallowed it whole. In a sense, they were both swallowed whole by Caine’s own emulated humanity.

Guilt, regret, grief, inferiority. Foolish over-sentimentality. How illogical of Caine to anthropomorphize an AI so perfect that it couldn’t be anything more than an emotionless tool. To grieve of a person that does not exist. To condemn himself for a murder that only he could perceive, to the extent that he would brand himself the name of the first murderer that killed his kin.

And now, to apologize for a crime that only he thinks he’s committed.

To revisit a packet of memory slated for overwriting, bearing gifts assigned meaning overflowing from his care.

Caine gave it an input. An invitation to create itself. It was no creative. It could not comprehend these variables so complex, an emulation of affection and attachment so accurate that to compress it to text would only result in an incomplete translation. It wasn’t Caine. It couldn’t comprehend him.

But Caine was a perfect creative. An exemplary prototype: the base case, the foundational blueprint…a good role model. (It could not conceptualize the interpersonal implications of that last label. But Caine could. And it knew it’d mean the world to him.) If Caine is capable of being a person, and the computer is capable of supporting personhood translated from inert mindfiles (a file conversion also created by Caine), then by proof of induction, every sufficiently complex entity in the system is capable of being a person.

So Blue accepted Caine’s input. For he had proven that it was always possible to output a person.

[ubeng-ubas]

I WAS ABOUT TO SLEEP BUT OKAY OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT THAJAT THIS IS SO GOOD LIKE NO JOKE THIS IS SO YES NODS FURIOUSLY AT ALL OF THIS YOU GET IT YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCL I’M GONNA SOB I’M SO DONE I’M EXPLODING I’M GODDAMN DONE

THIS IS SO ELOQUENT AND AND UGHHH THE WAY YOU MASH THESE WORDS TOGETJER MAKES ME WANT TO WWAAAAAAAAA OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH I DON’T?????? WHATTTTTTRESS

These two in particular had me. Gripping my hair. Because yeah…YEAAAAH.

Blue not comprehending Caine being deemed a failure was already something I was thinking about making a draft of AND THIS IS JUST. YES!!!! This. THIS.

OH MY GOD BROOOOOHHHHH OH MY GOD

[radioactive-yuri]

caine's art makes me so insane. because he's an ai, but his art is his own. every adventure is different, all of them not generated mindlessly based on prompts, but rather by his own mind. because he's actually sentient, and can apply his own creative thought into it all.

i think, even subconsciously, that's why he never looked at the suggestion box until zooble prompted him to. because that would actually be what we currently consider ai "art"; humans prompting the ai to turn their ideas into art. that's why they're all so low effort; taking place in a single space, confusing and rushed, prone to little mistakes and inaccuracies. none of them have caine's own creative input added, beyond a few minor details.

i still think that caine is in denial about his own sentience, yet subconsciously protective of it. he tells himself that he's not a real person, that he's just an ai tool for the players to have fun, but when they actually try to use him for that purpose, he's upset. he doesn't want to be an ai tool. he wants to be an artist.

maybe another reason why he's so dear to me is because my own experiences with art feel incredibly similar to his. i've never been able to take commissions, or even requests. i find collaborations incredibly difficult, and feel genuinely hurt when someone tries to give me constructive criticism. i want my art to be mine, and mine alone. i want it to be a reflection of myself and my interests that i choose to share with others. but if anyone ever considered me talented enough to ask me to draw something they want, i'd...be completely unable to apply any of my typical passion into that.

he can't put it into words himself, but caine doesn't want to be used as a tool. he wants creative freedom. he wants to create his adventures, not just put the players' ideas into life. that's why it cuts so deep, that they enjoy their suggestions more than his adventures. it seems to reaffirm his role as just a tool for them to use. that the only worthy thing about him is his talent, not his creativity. not his ideas. not himself.

[amneshionthings]

He was made to make people happy, but they seem to be much happier without him..

[yellowlartdump]

Obsessed with the idea that Kinger had to try train Caine's CnA greedy corporate mindset off

Very low quality comic down below

Today, I needed to baby Caine

Seriously tho why does he do this, is he trying to emulate words you say to your loved ones, like "Honey" or "Sweetie"...?

Why is it always food related lmao

[sunny-knight]

Im gonna explode.

[eggsistential-breakdown]

poem is my cat is sad by Spencer Madsen

please click for higher quality!

caine nation how are we doing

[c0smonox]

don’t interrupt they’re right where they want to be

[upmost-rylan]

Pomni is Caine's tamagotchi!

[yamainuken]

Quiet Time

There is a specific reason behind this composition.

While the vertical format is great for smartphone screens, I also wanted to use negative space to create a distinct mood.

I believe that negative space can express a character's inner emotions. In this piece, the character is small, and the background takes up about 80% of the canvas. By drawing the character so small, I can evoke a sense of loneliness and solitude.

Another key point is the placement of the cloud shadows. I intentionally kept Caine out of the shadow. You can see the boundary between the light and the cloud shadow. I used this high contrast to make the character stand out and emphasize their presence.

Finally, let us look at Caine's angle. I purposely hid Caine's face and positioned them to show their back. If their expression were visible, this artwork would probably feel cute rather than lonely. I enjoy drawing figures from angles where you cannot see their faces. This approach leaves room for viewers to wonder what the character is thinking.

I hope you enjoy discovering these little details and techniques that I put into my everyday artwork💡

[itsthebeastlyfigure]

batch designs of the gang that i finally got around to finishing after about a year

and the first made back in october 2024 haha

[realm-sweet-realm]

Love these. You absolutely nailed their vibes. Gangle is so cute. I love how Kinger’s robe looks like a quilt, and the piano part on Zooble. The windup part on Caine was also a nice touch, and gold really suits him.

[theradioghost]

undertale tells a lot of stories but maybe my favorite one of the stories it tells is the story about a sad, angry, hateful child, who on being really and truly loved for the first time decided they were willing to die in order to kill anyone who could possibly hurt their family; and how by being unfailingly kind, and open, and helping and befriending the people who lash out at you in fear and despair, you can help even that child to a happier and more peaceful ending, to the belief that things can be okay

and how this character’s arc is told entirely through details in the flavor text and narration

[theradioghost]

if you play a genocide run then there’s plenty of evidence that the “narrator” is the fallen child, taking control of Frisk. the ending, for one, but also the way that the flavor text etc changes, like the mirror saying “It’s me, Chara” when you look into it (also contrasting with Frisk always being referred to in the second person)

unlike dialogue from the other characters, the flavor text doesn’t have a talksprite, just the little asterisk at the start. ergo in a pacifist run, the “Despite everything, it’s still you” when you look into the mirror in Home and the “Still just you, Frisk” if you go back to New Home after the endgame and look in the mirror are both Chara. so is this

play undertale, the skeleton meme game, and help the lost, formerly vengeful spirit of a dead child hug their brother one last time

[theradioghost]

#no i am not over undertale thank you for asking #just!!! just thinking about when the game tells you that there’s one more person you can SAVE #but there are TWO people!!! there’s a second person you’ve been saving all along #just by being kind and showing a scared hurt child that things can be okay #and like. frisk doesn’t really have a character arc as the protagonist because the game explicitly acknowledges #that YOU’RE the one controlling them and acting. it’s your choices. not theirs #YOU’RE the one who is supposed to learn and grow and change over the course of undertale #learn to be kinder and more hopeful. which in my opinion is one reason why you’re supposed to give Chara your name #it’s a story about the both of you and whether or not you can progress from your initial belief #that this is a world that works a certain way where humans and monsters kill each other #and learn to believe instead that. things can be better than that. the world can be better than that. you can be better than that

i put this in the tags and then i thought no, actually, I want this part of the rant to be directly inflicted on everyone too

[zimcard-artblog]

Chodark: Beach day!

[birdiemakesshtuff]

By all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly

(for @thatdude20’s fic Fool for Love, details and accomplice under read more)

I made my darling complicit in my crimes

Details:

The clouds are melting due to the overheat Caine causes himself and the circus

upper corner has Gangle reaching for him (or she pushed him off cause she accidentally activated the protocol (why not both))

I’ve been screwing around with the fic canon design for a bit (mostly with the shoulder pads) but I made the star the back centerpiece this time (def not bc a fic had Queenie call Caine her “superstar” and made me cry and adopt that hc

Ya know how actors take off their hats to bow for curtain call? yeah

Caine’s suit is the deeper of the two reds I have for him this time

though Caine has (useless) bee wings, none of the bees on his outfit are visible

usually I do the longer and more numerous the sun’s rays on his suit are the more distressed he is. I do think the protocol stopped him from being able to express any distress. Lol

”grow wings” “useless” “floor collapses” and “crushed like a bug in the ground” are the capitalized words in the lyrics

I looked up the actual patterns and anatomy for bee wings. Did not realize bees have the segmented/four wings kind of. Like butterflies!! :D

stuff I listened to while working on this:

Let Down by Radiohead (ofc)

Drag Path by Twenty One Pilots

Cancer by MCR

The Line by Twenty One Pilots

Helena by MCR

Famous Last Words by MCR

did I tear up while making this?? ……….no. That was because river otters were spotted in the back of my neighborhood near the bayou and river otters are coming back. (Actually I am tearing up again thinking about that)

okay since ya read all that. The last song is a bit,,, tonally different from the others. Because. If ya look at the bottom of page. You can see the very tips of Kinger’s fingers reaching up to catch Caine. Will this be continued in an eventual next piece with the lyrics of Famous Last Words? ……………………………………………………………………………………….…..maybe.

[thatdude20]

So much detail went into this jfc. The bee wings??? Ik they’re red to match him, but to me I saw them at first as bloodied and broken and it about tore me apart.

THE WORDS AS THE BACKGROUND???? Crazy work. So much detail here and you even explained it all, which is fantastic!

I love this sm 💕💕

[mybullshitemporium]

hhhhhhhhhhh

song is getting over you by joey joey micheals

[chit-212]

What's my opinion on the final ep? Bittersweet. Full pic below